The Directorate General of Hydrocarbons (DGH) under the Indian Ministry of Petroleum and Natural Gas has announced the results of the second and third rounds of oil and gas auctions held under the Open Acreage Licensing Policy (OALP). A total of 37 oil and gas blocks were offered in the two rounds: 14 blocks over 7 sedimentary basins and 4 States and offshore areas in the Round 2 launched in January 2019; 23 oil and gas blocks across 12 sedimentary basins in the Round 3 launched in February 2019. Overall, 32 blocks were awarded, including 14 in the Round 2 and 18 in the Round 3. Most of the blocks were awarded to Oil India Ltd (12 blocks, 6 in each round), Vedanta (10 blocks, 5 in each round) and ONGC (8 blocks, of which 7 in the Round 3). Reliance (60%) and BP (40%) together as well as Indian Oil Corporation each won a block in Round 2.
The last OALP round was launched in 2017 and bids closed in May 2018. India-based private owned mining company Vedanta bagged 41 out of the 55 oil and gas exploration blocks offered, while state-run companies Oil India and ONGC (Oil and Natural Gas Corporation) won 9 and 2 blocks, respectively. State-run GAIL (the upstream arm of Bharat Petroleum Corporation) and Hindustan Petroleum were awarded 1 block each. Out of the nine Indian companies that participated in the technical bidding process, five were public sector units, while four were private companies.
The OALP procedure was implemented under the new Hydrocarbon Exploration and Licensing Policy (HELP). It allows interested bidders to put in expression of interest (EoI) for prospecting oil and gas potential in an area that presently does not belong to any production or exploration license. OALP rounds are expected to help India to cut its fuel import dependency to 10% by 2022 and up to 50% by 2030.